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The scandal of a Chinese scientist who lied about his inventions is just the tip of the iceberg in an academic environment where, analysts say, incentives to cheat are great and the risk of being found out is small.

Professor Chen Jin, dean of the microelectronics school at the prestigious Shanghai Jiaotong University, was fired after a government investigation found he had faked research on his Hanxin series of digital signal processing chips, authorities announce.

The research was seen as an important step in helping China wean itself off reliance on foreign technology.

But a two-month investigation found Chen's chips could not perform the functions he claimed, according to the Xinhua news agency. And he used another company's research and claimed it as his own.

The case was discovered only after a colleague blew the whistle and after Chen, 37, had received large grants from the government and was praised as one of the country's top young scientists.

Analysts say the case shows there are many pitfalls as the government strives to encourage its top schools and industries to come up with their own technological inventions to help the country catch up with the West.

Pressure on scientists and academics is also intense, leading some to take shortcuts, analysts say.

"In the past, academics were evaluated through a long process of monitoring their work. Nowadays ... there is pressure to show results quickly," says Dr Fan Peilei, a Chinese postdoctoral fellow at the UN University in Yokohama, Japan, who specialises in China's high-tech industries.

"The salary now is based on how many papers you issue, what new inventions you come up with."

But there is no domestic or overseas system to scrutinise Chinese researchers' work, Fan says.

"In Western countries, it's very open. With Chinese research, partly due to the language problem and lack of recognition that China can invent anything good, there is no one properly checking the work," she says.

"If there's some claim that some scientist invented something, there's no proper international review system ... The domestic supervision system is also not mature."

Looking to the West

An unnamed internet commentator says online that the root of the problem is China is too anxious to catch up with technologically advanced countries.

"Few people ... recognise reaching the level of the West is a long-term process," he says.

There are fears the case could bring Chinese inventions into disrepute.

"This will have a negative impact on the whole chip industry," says Zhang Ming, of Hangzhou Guoxin, a company that develops computer chips for satellites and cable TV.

The government's current five-year plan for the 2006-2010 period places special emphasis on developing an innovation-driven economy to rely less on simply being the world's factory for low-cost goods.

At the same time, complaints about academic corruption have been more vocal and there are signs that the government is waking up to the problem.

In February the education ministry urged people to report academic fraud, saying it was very concerned about the problem.

This year two other academics were publicly disciplined.

A professor at the medical school of China's Ivy League-type Tsinghua University was demoted in March after being accused of lying about his accomplishments on his CV.

And a Tianjin Foreign Language Institute professor accused of plagiarism in winning a professorship was dismissed after losing a lawsuit in January.

Granted there is a lot of good scientific research in China that is genuine, the case should serve as a warning to everyone, Fan says.

Fan, however, praises authorities for announcing the microchip case.

"That's an improvement. This is very different from 20 years ago," she says.

"I think it is encouraging to see unfortunate incidents like this are coming to the attention of government officials," Shea says.

"The role of the education system, r&d system and government funding ... all of this is being examined and looked at with fresh eyes in light of the high level of focus on creating an innovation society ... That's good for domestic industry and foreign industry."

The government has banned Chen from conducting further state research and ordered him to give back investment money.